Monday, February 1, 2010

March of the Sunflowers (Theme: Wall)


I drive by this wonderful field of sunflowers each time I venture up to Longmont, Colorado. The flowers sometimes stand 10-12 feet tall! And the field is HUGE!

It always freaks me out a bit that you can see the sunflower heads turning to follow the sun. It's like they are alive! They remind me of a regiment of troops tramping across the countryside. Always standing tall at attention following the movement of General Sun.

Try standing in the middle of a field of sunflowers that is 12 feet tall. It's beautiful, but a bit claustrophobic. You can't see anything around except a sheer wall of green with large yellow heads glaring down at you from above.

The theme for this round of work was 'Wall'. I chose to interpret this theme as all the many different ways that we can feel "walled in". It could be with bricks and mortar, but often we feel walled in by even the most beautiful things around us - like sunflowers.

Construction Methods: digital photo cropped and manipulated in Photoshop Elements. Printed on heavyweight cotton with archival inks. After free motion quilting, bead were added to create more texture within the center of the sunflowers. Textile paint was added to provide more highlights and lowlights to the piece.

This piece can be seen on my website gallery at www.inspiredfiber.com.

6 comments:

  1. dear Kathy your sunflowers are gorgeous and you are right sometimes we forgot that there are wonderful things in life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How interesting a take on the challenge, thanks,

    ReplyDelete
  3. i agree with susie: how interesting! standing in the middle of a field of sunflowers, i would never have thought of a wall - but now ... yes i can see it! thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want to see this larger!! I love sunflowers and have seen fields of them as you describe.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is GREAT - so GOOD to see in the dead of winter and remind us of the summer ahead!

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a happy piece, a bright yellow sunflower looking right at us!

    ReplyDelete